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Investor panel at Menlo Ventures

Robin Sloan Bechtel is a Grammy-nominated new media executive best known for discovering and pioneering the Internet starting in the early '90's at the web's infancy.

For the past two decades, Robin’s built unprecedented strategic partnerships between the entertainment world and startups, fueling growth and mainstream success for tech companies. She is also credited for discovering, what were then unknown startups like YouTube, Facebook, Twitter and Spotify and being the first to partner them with entertainment and popular culture.

Starting the first new media division in the entertainment industry in 1993, Robin created music and tech history for the biggest bands, artists and celebrities in the world. She created the Internet's first website for a band which garnered global press coverage and won design awards. In 1997, she sold the music industry's first digital single, which Billboard named "one of the most significant milestones in the history of the music industry." Her controversial digital strategy for Radiohead included streaming a full album online for the first time. Global media coverage credited this as the reason that the band's album debuted at number one, which helped shift the industry's fear of sharing music online while giving the Internet credibility for the first time in the music industry that it could drive album sales.

As SVP of Digital and New Businesses at Warner Bros. Records, Robin built the music industry's first mobile, digital music and merchandising divisions which generated hundreds of millions in revenue to the label. She launched iTunes with Apple and discovered and partnered with YouTube, marking the entertainment industry's first partnership with the online video platform.

Robin is also a startup investor, named "a pioneering matchmaker of Silicon Valley and Hollywood" by the San Jose Mercury News. She has invested in top startups including Uber, Everlane and Philz Coffee with valuations of over $68B.

Robin's projects have been featured in The Wall St. Journal, New York Times, CNN, Bloomberg, Time, Wired, Fortune, LA Times, Tech Crunch, People and US Weekly. Her career has been profiled in two New York Times Bestsellers: The Long Tail and Appetite for Self-Destruction: The Crash Of The Record Industry.

The Hollywood Reporter named Robin as one of the Most Powerful Women in Entertainment and one of Music's Top 100 Most Influential People.